The Miami Heat have a roster full of bloated contracts, making any trade this summer difficult. We’ll assess the overall trade value of the whole roster.
The Miami Heat enter the 2019 NBA Draft and free agency period coming off a season in which they were the most expensive team in league history to not make the playoffs. So expensive, in fact, that the organization made roster cuts late in the season before they were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention just in order to drop below the luxury tax.
As the roster stands right now, the Heat enter the summer with a staggering $141 million in salary (assuming Hassan Whiteside picks up his 2019-20 player options), about $9 million over the luxury tax. Ownership will be invested in cutting salary simply to get below that mark, while improving the competitive level of the roster will be a separate but similarly important goal.
In the NBA, almost no deal is completely unmovable. Some contracts are simply so bad, however, that in order to find a suitor, other teams will require high-value draft picks or assets in order to take on that toxic contract.
We’ll evaluate the Miami Heat roster by position group and assess the trade value of each player, breaking down whether each has positive or negative value to other teams and thus could bring a positive return in a trade, or would require incentivization.